Is It Just Me or is Mario Odyssey Easy

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Do you think people are right when they say Odyssey is too easy?

• Thread starter Geoff
• Start date Feb 12, 2018

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• #1

Often, when a really big game drops, there will be one specific complaint about that game that turns almost into a meme. The complaint will become accepted as fact. With Mario Odyssey, that complaint is that it is too easy.

I heard this complaint from people all over the internet and IRL. People would say "This game is fun but I finished it in five hours" or "I wanted to like it but the difficulty is designed for kids, there was no challenge". My response was to ask them if the had tried to get all the Moons and the answer that came back was always, ALWAYS, "no."

It wasn't just that they hadn't realised that there were harder challenges available, it's that they couldn't see the point. "But I had enough moons already! Why waste time looking for more?"

To me, this attitude is baffling. On the one hand they complain about difficulty, on the other they refuse to go out of their way to find the more challenging content. But this is always how Nintendo have done it. Even SMB had the warps. More recently, on the Wii U, 3D World and Woolly World both had systems in place where it was easy to finish a level but sometimes ridiculously hard to finish it AND collect all the extra stuff. The difficulty was there if you wanted it. No one seemed to have a problem with that. But with Odyssey, something about how they implemented the system seem to really throw people off. And that reaction was so common, I wonder if Nintendo fucked up somehow.

For clarity - I'm not looking for a comparison of the hardest post-game moons with champions road or whatever, this is a thread about whether Nintendo's patented organic difficulty system malfunctioned in this game, resulting in many users missing most of the content and complaining about brevity.

• #2

It's not too easy. Some moons are very hard to get. What I don't like is that there are too many of them.

• #3

It's passable i'd say. Just right for me not to get bored.

• #4

It's not too easy. Some moons are very hard to get. What I don't like is that there are too many of them.

Exactly. There were some moons that took me an insane amount of time to get, but having too many of them devalued the hard ones.

• #5

Not easy but after 500+ moons the game gets very repetitive.

• #6

People shouldn't have to go out of their way to make a game fun or challenging for themselves. Games aren't real life.

• #7

I did not mind the difficulty but i do wish the game had some more harder levels, the late game stuff was pretty easy for the most part.

• #8

I think it's a bit too easy to progress through the story, yes. But I also think it's aimed at kids and that's a major point that has to be considered.

• #9

It's extremely easy. There simply is no challenge to beating the game. The tired old Mario boss formula is growing old too. I enjoyed the game but the challenge definitely isn't there.

• #10

It's definitely too easy. There's hardly any tough platforming in the mandatory or optional moons.

Compared to the bonus worlds platforming bliss in 3DW, it's easy to see the disappointment.

• #11

I guess, but basically every main quest moon has multiple ways of being completed, so its more about how hard you want to make it to yourself.

• #12

The base game is super easy and a lot of the post game moons are easy too but there are some really difficulty ones too. I'd say the balance is a little off because there are simple too many moons in the game. They should have went with quality over quantity. I say this as some one who got all the moons and really loves the game.

• #13

Anyone acting like it's any less easy than prior 3D Mario games (except Sunshine) is being ridiculous.

That said, I wish there were more hard levels and more hard levels that weren't rehashes of existing levels just without the hat.

• #14

People shouldn't have to go out of their way to make a game fun or challenging for themselves. Games aren't real life.

It's extremely easy. There simply is no challenge to beating the game. The tired old Mario boss formula is growing old too. I enjoyed the game but the challenge definitely isn't there.

Bit isn't getting ALL THE MOONS the real game? Just beating it is just for kids, right?

• #15

I was about 1 World from the end of the game and I stopped playing and moved on to other things. The game was boring to me, mostly because of how easy it is. I am not interested that I have to play to the end game to get to the most challenges or unique/clever obstacles. I gave the game over 100 moons and I found most of them to be too basic. I found the SMG games to have much more creative and challenging level design earlier on. The New Donk City segment where you hold forward while the song is playing was the biggest disappointment for me. There was almost no thought to the platforming during that segment until a little bit at the end. I don't like the level design or most of the moons in the game. Too many moons, and too many of them are arbitrary or easy.

• #16

Kinda, the boss battles are all pretty easy except for when u get to the endgame. Also some of those platforming puzzles are pretty tough. But I understand why ppl say it's really easy.

• #17

It definitely had the easiest final challenge.

• #18

That's pretty much my biggest complain about modern Mario games in general, and while it's kinda disappointing for me as a more experienced gamer, i get that these games are mostly designed for younger kids and their parents, so it's fine.

That said, i didn't complain a lot about that in Odissey, since the game seemed to be way more focused on exploration than platforming skills anyway.

Too bad it had the easiest post-game content since the Galaxy games, though.

• #19

Bit isn't getting ALL THE MOONS the real game? Just beating it is just for kids, right?

The game itself doesn't make acquiring all of them a driving impetus, just getting the 500 for Darker Side. Especially since you can buy yourself to 999.

• #20

The base game is super easy and a lot of the post game moons are easy too but there are some really difficulty ones too. I'd say the balance is a little off because there are simple too many moons in the game. They should have went with quality over quantity. I say this as some one who got all the moons and really loves the game.

This. Also, when the the moon you get by simply talking to someone is worth the same as the one that required a great deal of timing/skill/etc, it kind of devalues the achievement. After the first few worlds, I just didn't feel like there was any point in trying to get more moons.

Farsi

User banned at own request

• #21

Just like it's predecessors, yes the base game is very easy but if you want a challenge, the challenges are there.

• #22

Some stuff was easy. I also like to set jumping and movement challenges for myself, some of which were very hard.

• #23

Yes, this was one of the bigger problems with the game: severe lack of actual platforming challenges. The harder moons center around one time gimmicks.

• #24

I mean, the main 'campaign' is piss easy, and that's a fact, far easier than any of the previous 3D Mario games.

Higher level play is admittedly far more nuanced than the story is, but at the same time, it suffers from excessive bloat and repetition, so it has its own set of problems.

• #25

You don't want a game that's too easy (SM64) or too hard (Sunshine), you want something in the middle like Galaxy, and I think SMO does a good job of hitting that balance.

• #26

difficulty is not the problem. most of them are very boring, that is the problem.

• #27

I for one, was just fine with making my own challenges,completing a section captureless or straight up skipping a gimmick felt really good. Going from "I bet i can do this my own way" to "i can't believe I did it" really gave quite the feeling of satisfaction

• #28

I got every moon in the game and think the game is too easy.

Darker side is such a disappointment after Champion's Road, Crown-Crown, and The Perfect Run.

• #29

It thought it was exactly right for what Mario Odyssey is - the ultimate mainstream game literally anyone from a child to his grandfather can enjoy.

Though there was a hell of a lot more to do than I even realised

• #30

For clarity - I'm not looking for a comparison of the hardest post-game moons with champions road or whatever, this is a thread about whether Nintendo's patented organic difficulty system malfunctioned in this game, resulting in many users missing most of the content and complaining about brevity.

Not sure how you got here, I think the game is very easy aside from less than a handful of Moons per Kingdom, and I got 100% completion.

The ones I consider to be of decent difficulty and somewhat mentally engaging are stuff like Eastern Pillar in Sand K, the cage in Lost K, and the subarea that demands mastery of the roll mechanic. Those are some of the few times where I had to exert myself and "sit on the edge of the seat" and give everything I have to obtain, while the others had my brain on auto pilot. In fact I could deduce what needed to be done in a certain area by the time it takes Mario to run up to the situation.

• #31

No way. Odyssey has a great difficulty balance. It's easy if you go for the bare minimum, challenging if you go for lots of moons, and pretty tough if you try to get them all.

I had a great time with Odyssey, and whenever I got frustrated that an (optional) challenge was too hard, I could move on to something easier and come back to it later. To me, that's a perfect difficulty.

• #32

I can see why people were disappointed if they were looking for a challenge, but I definitely was not and still managed to have a *lot* of fun. I'm not too bothered either way as a result, could've been more difficult but I ain't gonna complain about that.

• #33

No. It's just easy enough so that almost anyone can play it, but still has optional challenges that please people like me.

It's a much better implementation of what they went for in 3D Land, in which the main campaign was way too easy, but then the second campaign was challenging.
By mixing the 2 together, but making the hard parts optional, they let me have a good mix, while my friends could also finish it just fine.

By the way, I didn't play to collect all of the moons, or really any of them. I played to finish the main story, and then also conquer any side challenges that presented themselves.
I could care less about the moon. It's the challenge that's my reward. So I just did all the optional stuff I could find before moving on to the next level. I didn't do much "post-game" content.

• #34

Its way too easy even in the post game outside of a handful of obstacle course moons.

3D World post game was way more challenging.

• #35

We must remember that it is made for to be enjoyed for very young kids too. It's obvious that the main story is for everyone while after 500+ moons are for more dedicated players.

I'm Happy that my kids could enjoyed (with the easy mode) same than me on the normal mode.They even found moons that I didn't. It was a happy experiencie.

• #36

I enjoyed SMO so much, but I think the lack of challenging content is the reason why I'll have a hard time replaying it in the future. There were some tough ones for sure, but I think even with the postgame content included, Odyssey is way more about the exploration and collecting than it is the pure platforming challenge.

• #37

Dont know havent played it yet.

But Ive come of the mind that its really not how hard or challenging a game is, that makes me like it, but rather how engaging it is. It just so happens to be the there are more challenging games that try to be engaging than the other way around.

But it is not mutually exclusive, and their are plenty of challenging games, that dont manage to stay engaging, and as such are usually seen as tedious.

Im expecting more or less what I get out of most mario games from this one. An entertaining, mostly pretty easy romp, with some end levels or bonus levels offering some serious challenge, but remaining engaging throughout the adventure.

• #38

Beating the main game was easy, but getting every moon can be a challenge. For me the fun wasn't so much about overcoming the challenge as it was the joy of exploring well made levels and discovering cleverly hidden secrets. Plus the controls are a joy as well.

Oct 27, 2017

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Spain

• #39

I'm personally quite in favor of the philosophy of ''easy to see the credits, hard to get 100%''

• #40

I enjoyed SMO so much, but I think the lack of challenging content is the reason why I'll have a hard time replaying it in the future. There were some tough ones for sure, but I think even with the postgame content included, Odyssey is way more about the exploration and collecting than it is the pure platforming challenge.

It is also about puzzles. There are plenty of Moons that are more to do with working out what you have to do rather than how you do it.

• #41

Yes, but aiming to get all of the moons felt more like a boring chore. I did have a lot of fun with the game for over 30 hours, though.

• #42

Perhaps it's just me, but collectibles aren't really much of an incentive by themselves. I played Mario Odyssey for long enough to unlock every level, but once collecting the moons was just about ticking off items on a list, I decided to give up. If I knew the moons I had left had an interesting challenge behind them I might be more inclined to put the time in, but for far too many of them, the challenge came from actually finding them.

I'm not too disappointed as even though it was a very easy game for the most part, it was all still really inventive and fun.

• #43

It is quite easy if you are just going through the main story. The challenge comes from collecting all of the moon's.

• #44

I feel like there are some moons from even before the post-game content unlocks that I will never get because my platforming skills aren't great. That one where you're a fireball and you're jumping across narrow moving pink goo paths in the air, for example.

I also died a number of times during the Bowser fight

though. And I've been playing Mario games for decades. So maybe my skill is taking a nosedive and the games are pitched at people like me now.

• #45

I think Odyssey is just right. Super Mario 64 and Sunshine are easy. Galaxy and Galaxy 2 medium and Super Mario 3D World and Odyssey are hard. The basic game? Not at all, but trying to beat the later levels/finding all the moons is tough, too tough for me although I consider myself above average gamer.

Last edited: Feb 12, 2018

• #46

It's as hard or easy as you want it to be, without having selectable difficulties, which is how a game should be

• #47

It's too easy if you're going for the 'I kill Bowser and I'm done' way.

If you go the 'collectathon' way, it's a whooooole other game. :P

• #48

I must've missed all these other challenging moons but when I was done done with the game I had something around 620~ and a good deal of the stuff I did for the second half of those just felt like bloat. Going through the levels again to comb through the moon block moons that are really just more of the same. Game would've been better off having all those in from the start.

• #49

There is definitely challenge there if you're looking for it. But overall it's not a super difficult game. 100%ing this game took patience and determination lol.

• #50

I didn't think it was too easy, I thought the moon requirement to finish the story is too low. When the game relies of my collection or completionist traits I lose interest (since I don't have those traits in the first place).

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Source: https://www.resetera.com/threads/do-you-think-people-are-right-when-they-say-odyssey-is-too-easy.22775/

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